“Ella knows her way around her voice as very few people today. But there are times when she seems to be unaware there are things the human voice just doesn’t do. She does them.”

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

Listen to her voice, don’t look at her.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

You take romance – I’ll take Jell-O.

She is amazingly creative, bringing so much more to a song than just a singer. She is a first-class musician and the most gracious person in the world.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.

Sometimes when we’re flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

Every time I look down on this timeless town, whether blue or gray be her skies, whether loud be her cheers, or whether soft be her tears, more and more do I realize that. I love Paris.

Whatever she does to my songs, she always makes them sound better.

I think I do better when I sing.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Coming through the years, and finding that I not only have just the fans of my day, but the young ones of today – that’s what it means, it means it was worth all of it.

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It’s no big secret. It’s the way I feel.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

She has been more famous, over a longer time span, than any other female singer.

I know you were born with your heart already broken. But the world began in pieces and somehow made itself whole.

I know love because I am in love. Because of how long I’ve loved. Because of the man I love.

I did not know that it was love until I knew.

Somehow, there is a sense of comfort in knowing nothing will ever hit me quite as hard again. Nothing will ever be as beautiful, but neither will anything hurt as much.

I want you to remember my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. I want you to know that I have kept sacred, everything you had entrusted in me and I always will.

But when I look at you, I just know instinctively, that despite the odds against you and although life will always find a way to test you, someday you’ll have everything you want. Your ending will be a happy one.

There are days when the melancholy settles on you like a sudden change in weather. The kind of sadness that is intangible. Like the presence of an ache where you can’t pinpoint exactly where it hurts, you just know it does.

I know you are scared. Who could blame you? Love is a hurricane wrapped inside a chrysalis. And you are a girl walking into the storm.